Can Tuition Increase Midway Through Semester

[Nwhite21]

My question involves education law in the State of: Virginia.

I am an out of state graduate student and typically pay out of state tuition. At the beginning of the semester I was classified as in state, which I assumed was because all classes have moved online during COVID. The university used my loans to pay the tuition, and then disbursed the rest to me for my living expenses. Today I received an email of an outstanding balance of $8,000 on my student account. I checked and it showed that they added out of state tuition to my bill. I have no idea when or why this was added as I never received any emails or notifications of it. The university never sent any emails or made announcements about tuition changes either before the semester or during it. Am I responsible to pay this added amount? If they made a mistake in giving me in state tuition and are now demanding the out of state addition, am I required to pay it even though I was not informed and already paid the tuition amount they initially asked for? Is it legal for colleges to charge extra tuition costs midway through a semester?

I am really stressing out, thanks for all your help.

[cbg]

When you called the Student Financial Services office, or whatever your school calls it, what did they say?

[Nwhite21]

I got this email about an hour ago and their office was closed. I sent a few emails and will call tomorrow morning. I’m guessing this is an error and I’m afraid they’re going to make me pay it because they “accidentally gave me in state tuition to begin with and are now correcting it.” That just doesn’t seem legal.

[Zigner]

I got this email about an hour ago and their office was closed. I sent a few emails and will call tomorrow morning. I’m guessing this is an error and I’m afraid they’re going to make me pay it because they “accidentally gave me in state tuition to begin with and are now correcting it.” That just doesn’t seem legal.

While it is they that made an error, you made a choice to spend the money that you knew you shouldn't have (the excess from the loan).

[cbg]

Illegal to correct a mistake? You're thinking the law says they have to allow you to keep something you're not entitled to as long as they're the ones who made the error?

I don't know if you legally need to pay it or not since I don't know what their reasoning is, but you need to talk to them and see what they tell you before you start worrying yourself sick. What if they tell you the email was an error and everything is clear?

[Nwhite21]

While it is they that made an error, you made a choice to spend the money that you knew you shouldn't have (the excess from the loan).

I never said that I spent the excess money from the loan. But thanks for the unhelpful comment.

Illegal to correct a mistake? You're thinking the law says they have to allow you to keep something you're not entitled to as long as they're the ones who made the error?

I don't know if you legally need to pay it or not since I don't know what their reasoning is, but you need to talk to them and see what they tell you before you start worrying yourself sick. What if they tell you the email was an error and everything is clear?

I’m not sure what the law says about increasing tuition midway through the semester, that’s why I posted this question.

[cbg]

There is in state tuition, and there is out of state tuition.

If, at the beginning of the semester, they said, In state is x and out of state is y, and then later they said, No, in state is z and out of state is a, that would be increasing tuition.

But telling you in error that you qualified for x and then correcting the error when you always only qualified for y and never did qualify for x, is a different thing.

But we're not going to get anywhere guessing. When you talk to them tomorrow and find out what they say, come back and tell us. Until then, we're not doing any good speculating.

[Zigner]

I never said that I spent the excess money from the loan. But thanks for the unhelpful comment.

That implies that you didn't spend the money, which is fantastic because that puts you in the position of repaying the money that we mistakenly given to you.

[paddywakk]

In my experience, it's the registrar who charges tuition, not the financial services office. What made you think you were now a resident for tuition purposes?

[cbg]

I work for a major university and my phone extension is one digit off from Student Financial Services. I get calls...

Regardless of who it is that manages tuition or what department name they put on the office door, that's the person the OP needs to be speaking to before starting to talk about legalities.